Looking to capitalize on growing global demand for healthy food products, Milwaukie-based Bob's Red Mill Natural Foods Inc. is making a major push into international markets.

Although Bob's Red Mill products have been available in Japan for years, the company has not made a push elsewhere.

"There just seems to be a global realization that healthy eating is a preferable lifestyle and the Asians are really picking up on this," said Dennis Gilliam, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Bob's Red Mill. "The world is coming to recognize the value of nothing added, nothing removed."

The company last fall hired a food export firm to launch its products into places such as Guatemala, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Mexico, Korea, Malaysia and Hong Kong.

As a result, Bob's Red Mill products likely will begin appearing on store shelves in some of those places mid-year.

"The U.S. is a trendsetter for the world in the food products industry," said Sally Cox, export sales director for Seattle-based Excel Trade Limited. Bob's Red Mill hired the firm last September to assist in its international trade. "The organic and natural foods industry is someplace that the U.S. can still compete in on a global basis. It is something that the rest of the world is looking at for the future of their business as well."

The company fields at least half-a-dozen weekly inquiries from foreign companies, Cox said.

"We're on the very leading edge of having consumers, importers, wholesalers and others in Asia and elsewhere understand that there is a wide range of healthy products available to them," said John Kratochvil, manager of international trade for the Oregon Department of Agriculture.

Kratochvil and Gilliam were part of an Oregon delegation that visited Korea in 2004.

Since its founding in 1978 by former auto service center manager Bob Moore, Bob's Red Mill has grown into a 75-person company that bills itself as the "nation's leading miller of diverse whole-grain foods."

The profitable company generates annual revenue in the range of $30 million to $50 million. Privately held by Moore, his wife, Charlee, and several executives, Bob's Red Mill doesn't disclose specific revenue numbers.

But according to data provided by natural foods industry research firm Spins, Bob's Red Mill leads the baking supplies category at conventional supermarkets with a 44 percent increase in 2004 sales over 2003 sales.

That kind of pace has allowed the company to move from a modest facility along Southeast McLoughlin Boulevard. In 2003, the company opened a 65,000-square-foot distribution center more than twice the size of its previous space. It also opened a retail outlet and visitors center adjacent to its manufacturing facility.

Bob's offers a slate of more than 400 products, including a variety of flours and cereals milled at the company's 82,000-square-foot manufacturing complex. Although the products are prominently featured at organic and natural grocery stores such as New Seasons and Wild Oats, the Bob's line also is easy to find at more mainstream grocery outlets.

Operating around the clock, the company runs mills equipped with stones dating to the 15th century that are used to grind thousands of pounds of products daily.

Demand for healthier foods has propelled Bob's Red Mill to double-digit growth for five years, said Gilliam.

Consumer interest in natural and organically grown foods is fueling strong demand for the sort of specialty items produced by Bob's Red Mill. Interest in those products gradually has shifted from health-conscious to mainstream consumers in recent years.

That has made flaxseed meal, wheat bran and "Muesli Old Style Cereal" some of the company's best-selling products in grocery stores throughout the country.

A move last month by the U.S. Department of Agriculture likely means Bob's Red Mill will continue to operate at full bore, Gilliam said.

USDA recommended that Americans get at least half their daily consumption of grain from whole-grain products.

"We are filled with the great expectation that 2005 will be the breakthrough year with the consumer, because of the growing understanding that you can control disease with a fork and a knife and what you put on your plate three times a day," Gilliam said.

For Bob's management team, changes in consumer habits and endorsements from the federal government come as vindication.

"We're just happy that now everybody else is getting on the [whole-grains] bandwagon," said Bob's Red Mill Chief Financial Officer John Wagner.

"Before we were sort of evangelists on the street corner telling everyone about Jesus and very few listened. Now it's in vogue."

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